


I Crossed the Desert and Split the Mountain in Two

by wede_fic (frahulettaes)



Category: Friday Night Lights, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-08
Updated: 2009-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:22:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24068050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frahulettaes/pseuds/wede_fic
Summary: Pairing: Tom Riggins/Jensen Butler (original characters)Summary: Tom thinks he's out of chances. Knee busted and burnt out. But life has a way, doesn't it? A way with second chances.Just a little bit of Tayasha for a mid-winter's treat. The title is from a poem by Al Hallaj.Author's summary: "These stories are set in 'The West that Never Was', an alternative history world where the Norse colony of L'Anse aux Meadows flourished. Because of this, the western continents were ‘discovered’ in early 11th century, not late 15th century. What we call North America is a much more fragmented land, made up of many countries and federations. The earlier settlement means that Islam and Irish Christianity are the main religions in the southwest, and both religions are practiced with some odd regional peculiarities......It’s 1854. Jared, an Easterner, goes west and meets a handsome Ranger named Jensen. You know, typical western romance."
Relationships: Tim Riggins/Original Male Character(s)





	1. Chapter 1

I Crossed the Desert and Split the Mountain in Two

For your sake, I hurry over land and water:  
For your sake, I cross the desert and split the mountain in two,  
And turn my face from all things,  
Until the time I reach the place  
Where I am alone with You.

Al Hallaj

*~*

Tom's cell rang, loud and obnoxious, waking him from solid sleep. He groaned and slapped at it sending it skittering off the table and across the floor, out of reach. He laid back with a sigh, head and knee aching to beat the band. He was nearly back to sleep when the damned thing rang again and he figured it being daylight and all, he ought to get his ass up, so he threw the covers off and set his feet on the cold wooden floor. 

Standing was pretty iffy, even on good days which this one was not, and he teetered a little until his balance settled then reached for his phone. 

He flipped it and put it to his ear as he gingerly made his way to the john. 

"What." he said, voice dry and tired.

"Riggs, man, where the hell are you?" The voice was tense and sounded angry. 

"I'm taking a piss. What do you want, Trace?" He slurred his words together and sighed with relief, his piss splashing loudly in the toilet. 

"So you haven't heard?" Trace said.

Tom switched ears and held the phone with his shoulder as he finished, tucking himself back in his shorts.

"Heard what, man? Becky finally find out about you and Mike?" He switched the phone back and smiled at his own joke.

"Oh fuck you, man. And no, she fucking has not." Trace paused. "It's Jensen. Jensen Butler, he's back." 

Tom stopped, heart in his throat, belly gone tight and hard, mind reeling back five years, flooding with images and sensations. 

Jensen fucking Butler. 

Damn it all to hell. 

He snapped his phone shut and threw it at the wall.

*~*

He'd been nineteen, just graduated high school on his way to Tejas U and a full ride complete with love letters from half the NFL. 

Jensen had been the quintessential older man: polished, discreet, hotter than the Tayasha summer in his Ranger fatigues and undeniable maleness, home on leave. 

The whole thing had been so fucking cliche. 

*~*

He ditched the beer in favor of Normandy Bourbon and the day's nearly gone before he saw the bottom of it. He knew, knew in his bones, knew in every breath, that he's fucked. Has been fucked for five fucking years, two of them in college, three bowl games and one career ending blown knee, fucked. 

He's fucked because he'd been in fucking love with Jensen Butler since the second he laid eyes on him. 

He reached for the bottle and killed it, watched the Tayasha desert through the clear glass of the bottle's end and thought about what might have been his life. 

*~*

It was a few days and several bottles before Tom saw Jensen.

He was hammered, house dark, one of his Panther games on the tv. 

He'd been listening for a while, eyes closed, letting the announcer's patter wash over him, remembering.

He opened his eyes and Jensen was there, no fatigues, just his washed ranch denims and boots, Ranger tee pulled tight across his chest. He looked older, sadder, wrinkles softening at the corners of his eyes. They looked good on him. He looked good. He was too drunk for sex but his dick got hard and it made him angry. 

"Fuck you, Jensen. Get the fuck out of my house." He slurred and tried to stand. Jensen moved to help him and got a sloppy roundhouse punch for his troubles. 

*~*

Tom vomited Normandy's finest into the toilet, knees cold on the tile, Jensen's hand warm on his neck. 

"Jesus Christ, Tom." Jensen murmured and shifted and then there was a damp cloth gently wiping his face. The feeling was blessed and cool. 

*~*

He slept. Deep and dreamless.

*~*

The aroma of coffee filled his dreams. He woke.

His mouth felt thick and his knee ached but he couldn't remember the last time he'd awakened feeling rested. He stretched and relished the soft cleanness of his sheets and remembered his belly when the smell of tortilla joined that of coffee filling his room. The curtains were drawn and morning was well underway, the sky jewel like blue through his windows. He blinked. There are sweats laid out on the bed beside him and he pulled them on, stretching his knee, flexing it and grimacing at the pain. He wobbled a little when he stood and was surprised by a strong arm around his waist. 

Jensen.

Anger swelled and he wanted to push away, to hit out, to smash Jensen's pretty face, bloody that mouth. But he couldn't. He's so fucked, he couldn't do anything but stand there, Jensen's arm warm around his waist, hand set across the bone of his hip. 

"Jensen." He murmured and pushed, unstable and tilting. Pushed Jensen with angry hands and his face set until the wall was behind him and he's pressed against Jensen from knees to chest. He looked, filling his eyes with Jensen, filling his mind with the feel and touch and sound, soft and rabbity, of Jensen's breath. He leaned up, such an odd angle but he remembered, until they're eye to eye, foreheads touching and just breathed him in. 

It was like coming home. 

*~*

They ate quietly, eggs and ranchero sauce with hot fresh tortillas. After, Jensen put him into his old International Harvester and took him deep into the Tayasha, the car packed to the gunwales with boxes Tom couldn't even identify. He didn't worry about it too much, just let Jensen move him around, let Jensen pick the music, a string of sad soft country ballads. 

He rolled his head on the seat back and watched Jensen drive, tried to see the Jensen of today through the prism of his memory. Watched his arm corded and hard muscled, long fingered hand holding the wheel, the shadow of hair darkening his cheek, ruddy and course. The feelings welled again and he let them; anger and fear and betrayal and sadness. His eyes welled and he turned away, let the tears fall. 

*~*

Tristan Butler's hunting cabin was famous in the Tayasha. Beautiful and understated, sitting on the finest piece of property this side of the Miz' zippi with views reaching down into Aztlan and up towards the mountains. Tom got out and just stared, let himself be impressed by the incredible view. 

By the time he came around Jensen had most of the truck unloaded and he wanted to feel guilty but couldn't. He grabbed the last box and carried it into the cool dimness of the kitchen. 

Again he was surprised. The kitchen was a broad open area, pantry to the left, door open and the whole west wall open to the house. He put the box down and walked through the open area to the living room, his sneakers silent on the Aztlan paver tiles and stood before the window. 

The view was of the western mountains, clouds swelling on their shoulders, the sun staining the borders violent orange, the shadows purple black. He put his hand on the glass and lost himself in the sight. It was incredible. 

Jensen returned, his foot falls soft on the tiles and across the Aztlan rugs, his hands and arms coming warm around Tom's waist, chest a solid weight at his back. 

They watched as the light dimmed and the stars fill up the Tayasha night. 

*~*

"I saw the game." Jensen murmured against Tom's ear. 

They lay across Tristan's sprawling New Sussex bed, the linen a century old and softened by countless washes. Jensen's fingers trailed up Tom's thigh, over the scarred ruin of his knee and clasp softly over it, fingers warm. Tom's breath stilled, eyes firmly on the swell of Jensen's lips. 

"Saw you laying on the field, saw them take you away and I," Jensen paused, voice rough. Tom could hear his breath catch and the frantic swallow that followed. "I wanted to catch you." Jensen all but whispered. Tom raised a hand to Jensen's face, his fingertips just touching the rough cheek and smooth neck. He remembered too much, all the feelings of loss and betrayal swirled with love and lust and youthful innocence. 

"You were my first." Tom said. And he meant love but somehow couldn't say the word. 

"I know." Jensen whispered and brushed a soft kiss across his lips, clasped his hand and drew it up between them and kiss the wide, brown palm, then pressed it to his chest, over his heart.

"Took everything in me to stay away from you after that. Cap Morgan about killed me twice over." He smiled and Tom pulled his hand away so he could touch the soft lips again. Jensen smiled into the touch and let his lips part. "Then I," he paused and looked down at Tom's hand, clasped it gently and pulled it up to his chest, to his shoulder. "There was a sniper. He was good, went right through the vest and nicked my lung." His hand held Tom's over the small mound of the scar under his shirt. 

Tom let out a breath and with it five long years of mourning and loss. He slid his hand up the slope of Jensen's shoulder, let it cup the back of his neck and drew him down, down until their lips were a breath apart. He could just make out the grass green of Jensen's eyes and the darkened scruff of hair on his cheek before their lips met. It was gentle which never had been before. Tom explored the soft lushness of Jensen's mouth and Jensen let him. Tom's fingers trailed across skin and through hair, over and under shirt to the warm expanse of Jensen's back. 

He was hard, Jensen always did that to him, but it wasn't the crushing pounding now now now it once had been. Now Tom wanted all of Jensen. The soft and the hard, he wanted everything and there on Tristan's wide soft bed with nothing but miles of the Tayasha silent around them, he meant to have it.

Tom's hips rolled up and he pulled Jensen over him until he settled into the saddle of Tom's thighs, knees spread wide and open. Jensen's breath hitched and he gasped and groaned into Tom's mouth and the sound sent fire through him like nothing and no one else ever had. He pushed abruptly away and dragged his t-shirt off, sent it flying then went after Jensen's henley. Jensen brushed his pulling hands away and dragged it off then bent to unlacing Tom's boots. 

"Damn boots. Damn," He cursed and Tom laughed, low and soft, let his fingers ruffle the hair on Jensen's arms, watched with satisfaction the ripple of heat flow across Jensen's face at the touch. He laughed again when the offending boots went sailing across the room. Wriggled out of his jeans as Jensen tipped back, ass down and pulled his own ranch boots off then wriggled out of dungarees and boxers in one go. Jensen's cock arched up against his belly and Tom followed him across the bed, pushed him back onto his elbows and took it into his mouth. Breathed deep the smell of him and pressed his own cock into the bed as he sucked. Jensen cried out and lay back, chest heaving, cursing.

Tom sucked in and let his tongue caress the soft head, went down and drew up and off with a wet smack and Jensen gasped and groaned.

"Fuck, Tom." Jensen said, voice low and cracking, falling back flat. Tom opened his lips and took the rosy crown of Jensen's cock in, let his tongue brush the frenum, brought his fingers up to grasp and roll Jensen's balls and Jensen gasped, back arching. Tom let the motion push and pull Jensen's cock in his mouth then pushed until his nose brushed the crinkly hair at the base and swallowed. Push, lick, pull, swallow all in panting rhythm matched to the rock and thrust of Jensen's hips. Letting Jensen fuck his mouth as he fucked down into the soft linen and calico. It felt so damned good that he almost came from it. Almost.

"No." Tom said, lips wet with precum and spit and he pushed back, grabbed Jensen's hand, dragged him up the bed. "No, no." He was murmuring as he pushed and pulled and rolled them until Jensen was back in the cradle of this hips, eyes dazed, cock dribbling. "Fuck me, fuck me." He all but begged and some sense came back into Jensen's eyes and with it heat and knowledge and yes. Lots of yes. He nodded and grunted, their cocks pushed together. 

"Fuck fuck, Tom. God damn it. In my pants, my damned pants," Jensen rolled off and Tom lay cooling and hard in the space left behind. Watched as Jensen shuffled frantically through the room, cloth flying and finally, finally, the triumphant sound. Jensen was back in a flash, slithering skin over heated skin, fingers wet with slick sliding between the cheeks of his ass, searching and finding the soft furl of it and pushing in. Tom stilled, rolled his hips up and his eyes back and just let the beloved fingers open him up. 

"Yeah, that's it." Jensen said and slipped another finger in with the first and a little too soon a third. Tom gasped. 

"Come on," Tom said and rolled up, grabbed Jensen's wrist, stilling him. "Now, Jensen." Tom said and watched in the low light as Jensen popped the condom wrapper and rolled it on, one handed, letting Tom hold his wrist still, fingers still in Tom's ass. He let go as Jensen pulled them out and fell back, felt his knee twinge as Jensen pushed them wider and settle over him. 

"Tom." Jensen said quietly, and slid the tip of his cock in. Tom arched then curled, hips rising up to meet Jensen's thrust. "Tom." Jensen said again and it felt like coming home. 

*~*

Jensen took his time. Closed his eyes, dropped his head back and let the see saw of his hips rock them, rock them together, heart light and full of joy. The sound of Tom's voice soft in his ears, the feel of him below and the tight hot grip of him on Jensen's cock was what heaven should feel like. He'd dreamed of this moment, stroked himself raw in the shower or on the bed and all of it had been a pale pale reflection of this moment. Tom rolled his hips up as Jensen rolled down and they met, roll and drag, roll and drag. It was too much, too good.

He slipped one hand between them, propped himself up on one elbow and stroked Tom's cock, sweetly curved blushed and hot, in time with the slow rise of his hips. Tom's eyes dropped closed, his neck arched and he huffed out a breathy sound. He wanted it to last forever but it had been too long in the making and he could feel his balls tighten, drawing up. Tom gripped him and inhaled, back arching off the bed and growled out his climax, muscles squeezing down on Jensen's cock and fucking hell yes, this was what he'd been waiting for. This had been worth five years paid in flesh and blood. He stroked Tom through it until he squirmed and cried out and then centered himself between Tom's knees, slipped his hands around Tom's hips and fucked in in in, let the tidal wave of pleasure overtake him until he lay boneless and gasping on Tom's chest.

*~*

Dawn on the Tayasha, so far from town or lights, was silent and achingly beautiful. 

Tom watched the sky go green and yellow and then heartbreakingly blue, wrapped in an rough woolen blanket on the veranda. As the sky lightened, a desert falcon rose from the Saguaro, its cry breaking the still beauty of the morning. The glass door stood open, the house still and dark. He'd left Jensen asleep on the wreckage of bedding and slipped out, too restless to join him.

The veranda held long low lounges heaped with pillows, all very soft and expensive. Tom wondered how often Jensen came out here, who took care of the place when he'd gone. Let his mind wander through memories and wonderings until, to his surprise, a steaming cup was put into his hand and Jensen settled beside him. The sun had risen, turning the mountains bloody red then burnt orange brown. 

"Hey," Tom said simply and Jensen put an arm around him and smiled. 

"Hey," Jensen said in return. 

The morning warmed the desert around them, lit the dim corners and the wide low valley that stretched away from Tristan Butler's cabin.


	2. Tristan's Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short story from a Big Bang story called Morgan’s Rangers: Tales from the Old West. This was a sprawling SPN au set in an alternate universe where the new world melded with the first nations in a way that was more what we might have wished. Calamity Crow wrote the fic, I did the art and wrote side pieces which were interspersed through the lj via image links.

Tom would never go to his knees for Jensen again. He rubbed a hand over the rough scared ruin of his knee and leaned back into the sofa as the rain spattered and heaved against the window. Tayasha storms were fierce, the rain thrown at them. Nearly horizontal, it was hard, merciless, so thick he couldn't see farther than than the low stone fence of the cabin's yard. Inside, fire blazing and Jensen puttering in the kitchen, Tom had time to let the week catch up to him. To let himself feel what had happened, what Jensen had done. And what he couldn't do for Jensen. 

Of course he knew Jensen didn't care. He'd laid back on this very sofa, rough Navajo fabric pressed to his skin, his breath gone, cock deep in Jensen's mouth and he couldn't feel bad about that. He toyed with feeling justified, tried on the feelings that Jensen owed him but, damn him, he just wasn't that guy. A swift barrage of images swept through his mind: Jensen, breathless, uniform open with Tom sinking gracefully down, mouth an open hot ring over the bulge in Jensen's shorts. He'd been barely twenty, full of life, limber and strong. The feelings ran through him, the easy grace of youth, painless and lighter than air. 

Most folks had a couple of decades to lose that feeling. He'd lost it in less than a year. Doc Singer'd tried to get him to come back for more surgery but he'd been obstinate and stupid. He wondered if it were too late, if the surgery would still work. He supposed it would. Doc called him a couple'a times a month at least and Tom supposed he should be grateful for the man's efforts. Fact was Doc Singer'd delivered him, had been his Mom's friend, had been his, given him his first condom, his first AIDS test, taught him to be a man, if it came to that. He realized, ruefully, that Doc Singer probably loved him like a son. Tom's own being gone these last fifteen years, Doc'd been the closest thing Tom'd had to one. God he was such a bastard. 

~*~ 

There's something pleasing to the lizard part of his brain that Jensen finds in grilling meat. A while back he'd installed a center grill on the range in the cabin and he's using it now to grill off some marinated chicken and thick slices of onion and peppers. The tortilla dough is warming on the counter and the beans bubble nicely on the back burner. He smiles to himself, thinks maybe cooking is genetic, reminds him to make it down to the restaurant and talk to his Dad. He'd take Tom, make a date out of it. The idea makes his cock hard. Dating Tom. 

They'd never dated. Never even made it past the heat of it. Three frantic weeks of hook ups and handjobs, once in the locker room at the High school for God's sake. He's just lucky no one suspected or he'd've been strung up by Doc Singer and Nancy Riggins. He looks through the kitchen into the living room, sees Tom clasping his knee, shoulders tense. He pulls the chicken off the grill quick and shuts it off. Hurries through the open kitchen, keeps his eyes on Tom's shoulders, Tom's reflection in the wide glass of the windows, face set. 

"Hey," Jensen says, fingers touching his shoulder gently. "Hey." he says again sliding to the ground between Tom's knees, heart clenched tight in his chest.


End file.
